The best documentary movie ever made!

I didn't find this interesting for a long time - narrated documentary about a marginally interesting character (outgoing woman, insecure, hopping from relationship to relationship, died of cancer) -- maybe if you're into mediocre soap operas, that would be good for you ... the purpose of the film only comes to light in the last 20 minutes, then it's more interesting. The point it makes has been made many times but it carries a different angle when it's a real story with real people.

Quite a ride. From early 2020.

Sarah Polley digs deep into the family closet to uncover a long-buried secret withheld from her in the engrossing documentary Stories We Tell. Interviewing family and friends, it quickly becomes apparent that truth can be a nebulous concept as individuals present the facts as they perceive them. When the truth is finally revealed, it's an emotional gut punch that makes one question the nature of love and validates the importance of family. Interspersed with the interviews are 8mm clips of a seemingly healthy family dynamic. The fact that Polley apparently hired actors to play the roles of family members in some of these flashbacks isn't as detrimental as one would think – it is virtually impossible to distinguish between the real footage and the newly shot scenes. Stories We Tell is fascinating throughout and forces one to examine their own family history.

Initially compelling but ultimately disappointing. Not as clever as it thinks it is. I enjoyed the mystery but got bored by the second half once the mystery was revealed. The movie purportedly examines memory but it failed to do that. And you're mislead to believe the home footage is real but it's fake.

Absolutely fantastic. If you love good stories as much as I then you definitely don't want to miss this one. I'm so thankful that the family shared their lives with us.

I've been meaning to watch this for years. It's all I heard it was -an absolutely brilliant dive into the rabbit-hole of documentary filmmaking. This film gets into your head - it's had me thinking about it for days now.

Really well done documentary...great directing and amazing editing! Neat stories, too! (AP)

A sometimes boring but still ending up interesting and a fulfilling doc

Every character in this fascinating exploration of Polley's parents' relationships is compelling and articulate-- a pleasure to watch

- Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell is a gripping tale of memory. - I used to watch the Avonlea series every week. It was my childhood version of Downton Abbey, and I never missed it. That was my first introduction to Canadian actress and now filmmaker Sarah Polley (Splice, Dawn of the Dead). I had no idea then just what a fascinating family she had. Stories We Tell, to quote Polley, is a film about memory. It has won 22 awards and screened at a slew of film festivals including Sundance and the Venice Film Festival. It's a vulnerable documentary about her vivacious late mother Diane Polley (Street Legal) and the rumors following her death that questioned Sarah's true parentage. The film is an investigation of her family's stories. Each character is given the chance to tell their story as they remember it. The beautifully candid interviews often contradict each other and express how memory is a fleeting understanding of one's history. Polley's own involvement in the storytelling is admirably minimal as she refrains from leading her family and family friends from saying anything beyond their truth. What amazes me about Stories We Tell is how raw and genuine it is. Documentaries often have an agenda. Frequently they have one message they wish to tell while attempting subjectivity by offering bits of the opposing viewpoint. Polley has no agenda. She remains sympathetic to all players involved. Everyone is simply telling their part of the story as they see it, with some allowable, loving speculation about how her mother must have felt since she is the only person unavailable to express her perspective. In her interview with Collider, Ms. Polley explains: "Whether everything in the film is fact, I don't know. Nothing in the film is intentionally taken out of context, and I think that everybody that's interviewed in the film is truthful about their memories of events. Whether their truthful memories of events are actually fact, I have no idea, and I don't think anybody can know that about their own life." Polley's vulnerability is an inspiration to me, and no doubt to those family members she interviewed. Each of them answered her questions gently and frankly, with both laughter and tears. They could have easily lied, but it's clear that Polley's own precedent of honesty and objectivity set the tone for the interviews and thus the documentary. Stories We Tell is fraught with pain and one imagines there could easily have been a lack of closure, since the discussion of Sarah's true father came after Diane's death. Instead, the film is one of unconditional love and grace. If the film does have an agenda, it is simply to express that we all make mistakes and in life, we are forced to make choices. Diane did her best in an age when women did not have many choices. The decisions she made - both good, bad and lasting - are the foundation for this moving documentary. I personally love to hear stories about my family, but it's only recently that I've begun to give grace to the members that have been responsible for the more painful stories. Because it's true that we all have our perspective. And we all have secrets. We all have the opportunity to give grace when the truth hurts, and extend forgiveness and love even when we don't understand. That's the real beauty of Stories We Tell. It's the tangible, heartening takeaway. ---------- This review was first published on Narrative Muse, http://narrativemuse.co/movies/stories-we-tell, and was written by Micah Orsetti. Narrative Muse curates the best books and movies by and about women and non-binary folk on our website http://narrativemuse.co and our social media channels.

Great use of archival and reenactment footage in a documentary.

I went into this without knowing quite what it was...which may be best (so perhaps skip this review and head straight to the film, which comes very highly recommended). I thought this was a fictional drama, likely to be heavy-going, but it's not; instead it exists in the grey area between fiction and documentary (where Werner Herzog and Orson Welles sometimes trod). Sarah Polley (Canadian star of The Sweet Hereafter, 1997, and Go, 1999, and director of Away from Her, 2006) begins by providing some biographical details about her mother, but it soon becomes apparent that a biosketch is not the real aim here, when we are introduced to Sarah's father, brothers and sisters, and family friends who are all asked to recount stories - or actually one story that is slowly revealed - about Sarah's mother (in front of Sarah herself, the offscreen interviewer). With Rashomon a distant forebear, we come to see how each narrator may have let their version of the mother's life be coloured by their own values and vested interests. Polley herself is even challenged about whether she is revealing the truth or refashioning the hours of recorded footage in the editing room to reflect her own needs or beliefs. Moreover, some of the Super-8 footage from the 1970s turns out to have been created later with actors and shot to look dated by Polley and her team. If this sounds like a bit of a mess, it's not - it turns out to be a moving drama (yes) about human relationships, the choices we make in life and their consequences, and above all, the ways in which we then digest and report those events to others. In the end, this is compelling reflexive cinema that comments on its own genesis and biases even while managing to tell us a real-life mystery story with a number of surprises. Highly recommended.

The opposite of a courageous piece of work, Stories We Tell goes out of its way to protect every single person it touches.

The Stories We Tell is a brilliant documentary. I would definitely recommend it.

excellent story/doc/narrative. compelling and not predictable in any sense. more Sarah Polley, more!

A rate film that tackles big issues (nature of memory, can we know others or even ourselves, the slippery nature of objective truth) in A way that is intellectually stimulating and emotionally poignant.

At first the life story of two little known actors doesn't really capture the imagination, but as the real life narrative develops it does get interesting to hear the personal life story of one family

I rented this because it was on a list of movies called: best movies of the century, so far. Yea, it was good. I always enjoy movies that have us "talking" about it even when it's over.

All this does is prove how easily manipulated film can be, and should make one question how many lies are pervaded in the documentaries we see. This is a living example of how staged they are. It's absolutely stunning, awe-inspiring - the science behind this work. I am simply blown away by the level of detail that is gone into creating this farce. The film stock, the casting of such exact facial features, the poses, attitudes in the interviews, style of flashback photography. At the same time, it's boring as fuck. It works so hard at creating this impression that it never stops to ask: is it interesting? The film feels extremely selfish, and at 1 hr 22 min, the filmmaker reveals just how selfish she is. Poor Harry wants to publish his story on this, but Sarah whines about that not being right. Only her version of the story should be published, only she should capitalize on it, not everyone else.